Skinner's Round (22 page)

There was dead silence across the room. It was broken, almost bizarrely, by the trilling of a mobile telephone. Around the table a dozen hands reached automatically into pockets, but it was Darren Atkinson who produced the intrusive instrument. He switched it off, apologetically.

As the buzz of conversation resumed, Skinner looked across the room towards Morton. His face seemed bright red, and suffused with rage. 'Tell me, Masur,' said the ACC, 'when you went to Charm School, why did you skip the diplomacy classes?'

The Australian followed the direction of the policeman's gaze and laughed. 'Don't waste your sympathy on that guy, Skinner. He's had it coming. Tomorrow will be a great day. It will mean that we've got a million-pound field without a single SSC player in it.' He drained his brandy.

Skinner shook his head in disgust, but his retort was cut off by Sarah's tug on his sleeve. 'Bob, over there. It's our taxi-driver. I'd say he's just in time.'

Thursday

Thirty-two

For once they were not awakened by the early morning phone call. Jazz had put in an unscheduled appearance and lay with them in their bed, refreshed and chortling between his drowsy parents.

`So, did you enjoy last night, aside from Masur's gloating wee speech?' asked Bob, sipping from a mug of restorative coffee, his naked shoulders cool against the pine headboard.

`Yeah. You know how much I like meeting new people. And it was a minor triumph to get into that black dress again, after having this fella.'

`Tell you something, I enjoyed watching the heads turn when you walked into the room.' She smiled and rubbed a leg against his.

`What did you think of my golf partner?'

`Special. He's got quite an aura about him. There were two guys in that room last night who stood out from the crowd, and I had one of you on either side of me at the dinner table. I'll tell you something. Susan Kinture's got the hots for Darren!'

Bob laughed. 'I am only a dumb copper, my darling, but even I had figured that one out!

D'you think she's really in the market, though?'

Sarah propped herself up on an elbow. The duvet slipped down her side, and Jazz seemed to eye her left breast, hungrily, as it swung closer to his face. 'She probably is. She's a fine healthy woman, is Sue, and it's questionable whether Hector, with his disability, is capable of meeting her needs.

`But leaving her appetites aside, d'you think Darren would be interested . . . or available? Is he married?'

No. He's a legendary golf bachelor. He told me he's had opportunities, but he's always put golf first. Probably right, too. D'you have any idea of the time these guys spend practising?'

She smiled. 'In that case, you better not let this week make you too keen on golf.'

Jazz looked up in surprise when the telephone rang. `Bugger!' Bob snapped, and picked it up, pulling himself upright. He glanced at the bedside alarm clock. It showed 6.21 a.m. 'Skinner!'

`Sorry, Boss. It's Andy. We've had another death at Witches' Hill.'

Òh, for fu . . .' He stopped himself short. 'Suspicious?'

`Depends what you read into a bloke being tied to the imitation seventeenth-century ducking stool and dropped into the Truth Loch!'

`Jesus Christ!'

`The club pro found him. He went out at five-thirty to position the flags and cut the holes for today's play. He did the eighteenth first, and was on his way back down the fairway when he saw that the stool was in the water.' He paused. 'You remember how it's usually held clear by a rope.

`He thought that the rope had slipped, and went over to replace it, but when he tried to haul the stool out of the water, it was a ton weight. But the device has a sort of pivoting lever, and he was strong enough to haul it up and swing it on to the bank. As soon as it was clear of the water, even in the grey light before dawn, he saw that there was a stiff in it. He belted back to the clubhouse and phoned Haddington. They called me. I've got men on the way there, I've called Ali Higgins, and I'm en route myself. Now I need a doctor.'

`Could the pro identify the body?'

`Well the light was dodgy and he looked a bit grotesque, but he said that he thought it was Masur, the Australian.'

Òh shit! That's all I need, a bloody gang war!'

He glanced across at Sarah. She was looking at him with a mixture of puzzlement and concern. Even Jazz seemed to be curious as he looked up at him.

ÒK, you've got your doctor. She'll be there inside fifteen minutes. We're not quite at the stage of taking the baby to crime scenes with us, so I'll be down as soon as Sarah's finished and back here.

`See you later!'

Thirty-three

The air still felt damp with the morning dew as Sarah pulled her car into the park in front of the clubhouse, from which she had emerged with her husband less than eight hours before.

The sleek black dress which she had worn to the PGA dinner had been replaced by a waxed cotton jacket, a heavy grey sweatshirt and her oldest, beachcombing denims, tucked into a pair of blue wellington boots, tied at the top. She parked her Frontera Sport alongside a shiny silver Mondeo with new registration plates, and was surprised when Andy Martin climbed out.

`This is a bit conservative for you, isn't it?' she said, pointing to the car. thought you were a sports hatch man.'

Martin shrugged his shoulders. He was in plain clothes, looking relaxed and, in his leather jacket, much more like the man she knew. 'After I smashed up the last one, I thought I should have something more in keeping with my age and status.' He grinned, and his mischievous look was back. 'Don't be fooled, though, Sarah. It might look like a dumpling, but its a twenty-four-valve!'

She made to climb out of the Vauxhall but he motioned her to stay where she was. Tour car's better equipped for where we're going' He climbed into the passenger seat and directed her around the clubhouse, past the eighteenth green and out on to the buggy track, heading towards the lightening sky in the east. Three hundred yards beyond the green they came to a point at which the rope barrier was untied. Sarah, following Martin's sign, turned the Frontera to the left, and headed through the thick rough and out across the fairway. As she crested a slight rise she could see, for the first time, the banks of the Truth Loch.

As she looked down the slope, the long thick pole of the ducking stool stood out on its tall central pillar, angled, stark and black against the smooth waters of the loch. One end was high in the air, and a thick rope dangled from it, the other rested in the thick grass of the bank, with a black shape around it. A little apart from the scene a police Range Rover was parked, its blue lights flashing. The angle at which it stood, side on to the loch, showed how steeply the bank sloped.

She took the Frontera as close as she dared, and stopped, pulling on the handbrake and leaving it in gear. She grabbed her bag from the back seat. Martin followed. He wore brown Panama Jack boots, and his slacks were tucked into thick grey socks.

Two uniformed officers stood guarding the body. One, a middle-aged Sergeant, nodded to Martin; the other, much younger and a Constable, saluted smartly. Sarah recognised him as the officer who had been on duty at the clubhouse entrance on the Sunday before. She smiled at him, and pointed to the object on the ground. 'Were you afraid someone might steal him?'

she asked PC Pye. He looked back at her, bemused.

`With all that's happened here this week,' said Martin, 'you ever know!' He turned to the Sergeant. 'Switch off the lights the Rover, Boyd. There are farms quite nearby, over the rise, and it's still dark enough for the flashes to be seen a way off. We don't want to advertise this before we have to' The veteran grunted and clambered off up the slope.

Sarah, suddenly grim-faced, stepped down the last few yards of the embankment. The stool had been landed only feet from the edge of the Truth Loch, and the ground around it Was almost swamplike. She squatted down beside the body, unclipping the catches of her bag.

The clothes were dark and sodden, the face was swollen and grey in death and the thinning brown hair was plastered over the forehead. She leaned closer and saw, on the cheeks and nose, a series of small, irregular puncture wounds. She lifted up the head in both hands and looked into the face. For a second her professional detachment faltered, and she gave a small shudder.

`Yes, Andy, this is William Masur. I sat opposite this man at the dinner table last night, and now at . . .' she glanced at her watch `. . . six-forty-nine a.m., I can certify that he is very dead.'

Ì suppose that must mean that he wasn't a witch, then,' said Martin, with the macabre humour which policemen sometimes need to make their job bearable.

The body was lashed to the low-backed chair of the ducking stool by a thick blue nylon rope.

'I can't give you cause of death until the pathologist opens him up and looks for water in the lungs. As to the time, going by the general condition of the body, I'd say he'd been in there for between five and seven hours' She let go of the head, which fell forward with a squelch on to the chest.

Martin knelt down beside her. 'What are those marks on the face, d'you think?'

'One or two fish have been taking an early breakfast, I'd guess.’

She put her hands back to the temples of the dead Masur, probing gently with her fingers, working her way gently round to the back of the head. 'There's an irregularity there. It's not as pronounced as in the case of White, but I'd guess that when they do the autopsy they'll find a skull fracture.

'My supposition is that the method is much the same as with Michael White. Someone cracked him on the head, knocked him unconscious, then finished him off. Only in this case the victim was drowned. I could be wrong. There may be other wounds that I can't find, and we can't untie him until the photographers are finished. But I don't see any rips in his blazer or his shirt, or anything else that would take us to another conclusion.'

Martin shook his head. 'You sure you couldn't work out a suicide theory for us on this one, Sarah? It'd make life a hell of a sight easier. One murder's bad enough, but two, on a site where we're expecting about sixty thousand people over the next four days!'

`Given enough time, Andy, I could work out a suicide theory for Abraham Lincoln. But I don't think anyone would buy it, any more than they'd buy this one. Sorry, but my conclusion is that the man who killed White has notched up another.'

They stood up together and clambered back up the bank to drier ground, where Sergeant Boyd and PC Pye maintained their solemn guard. Suddenly the silence was broken by the sound of two motor vehicles approaching beyond the rise. The four looked back up the hill until they swung into sight. ‘Good,' said Martin. 'That's the scene of crime team, and that looks like Higgins and Mcllhenney too. The sooner they all get to work, the better.'

Sarah nodded. 'I don't think that there's much more for me to do here, Andy. I'll write up a note for the record this morning, and fax it in. I'll speak to Alison, then I'll be off. Do you want to go back to your car?'

Not just now thanks. I'll stay here for a while.' But then his mobile telephone warbled its own dawn chorus.

Thirty-four

Skinner shambled across the kitchen and perched on a stool.

He caught his reflection in the glass door and smiled. His hair was tousled, there was a grey stubble around his jawline and his yellow towelling dressing-gown was knotted roughly around his waist. 'If the boys could see you now,' he muttered.

Jazz wriggled excitedly in his high feeding chair as he smelled the warm milky rusks. 'You realise,' said Bob solemnly, `that this is far too bloody early for you to be having breakfast.

You do understand that, do you?' He dug the baby's horn spoon into the grey mixture and held out a mouthful, just out of his reach. 'You do appreciate that no allowances will be made when you're yelling for more before lunchtime? That your mother will just ignore you till she's good and ready?'

Jazz bounced up and down against the straps of his chair, laughing and slapping its tray.

'Well, as long as you understand that.' He fed the baby the first spoonful, which he swallowed voraciously. 'Better than sex as far as you're concerned, isn't it, Wee man?' he said, inserting the second mouthful in answer to an affirmative shout by his son. Their bizarre conversation Continued until the bowl was empty, and until Jazz had been Convinced of the fact.

Breakfast over, Bob unstrapped him, and carried him, draped across his shoulder through to the living room, where they sat together on the smaller of the two couches. 'You just be quiet for a while, pal,' he said, picking up the telephone directory, and looking up the number of the Marquis of Kinture.

The telephone at Bracklands was answered by a bright voice which Skinner recognised as that of the girl who had sat for them during the PGA dinner. `Kylie, you're up early! It's Mr Skinner here. Look, I need to speak to Mr Highfield, urgently. If he's still asleep, can you waken him, and ask him to telephone me at once. If he has a mobile, tell him I said to use that.' He gave her his number. 'But listen, don't make a fuss about it, and try not to disturb anyone else. Is that OK?'

`Sure, Mr Skinner,' the girl drawled. 'I'll do that right away.'

He replaced the receiver and looked down at the contented Jazz. 'That was your girlfriend from last night, pal. You took a right shine to her, and don't tell me otherwise. I saw the way you were looking at her when we got home last night. You and your sister, you're two of a kind!'

When the phone rang a minute later he was ready and picked it up at once. 'Skinner.'

The voice at the other end sounded both curious and anxious. 'Mr Skinner, what is it? Have they found Oliver's father? Is that it?'

`Not as far as I know. No, this is much closer to home. When was the last time you saw Bill Masur?'

`Last night, at the clubhouse.'

`Not at the house?'

`No. I came back on the bus with the boys. Masur said something about enjoying the night air. Why?'

Skinner took a deep breath. 'Because Jimmy Robertson, the pro, fished him out of the Truth Loch about an hour ago.'